


,ci^ n 



QUAUTLA 



AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE 
NEW YORK HISTORICAL 
SOCIETY, APRIL 4™, 1893 



W 



BY 



Walter S. Logan 



THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA 



THE BUNKER HILL 
OF MEXICO 



AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE 

NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

APRIL 4TH, 1893 



BY 



WALTER S. LOGAN 



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THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA, 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 



I am to tell you to-night a story of the Mexican Revolution. It 
would be an appropriate introduction, if I had the time, to describe the 
origin of the Mexican race and show how the Spaniard conquered the 
men of Aztec land with his sword, and won the hearts of the women, 
and that thus the Mexican race began ; to trace the evolution of this 
race through successive generations and show how, being specially 
fitted for the environment, it increased and multiplied, while the pure 
Spaniard barely held his own, and the unmixed Indian wasted away 
before the new conditions of life brought about by the advent of the 
European. 

But the hour which you so graciously give me to-night is too short 
for all this, and I must jump at once over two centuries and a half and 
take the race as I find it, in its maturity. 

The time has come for independence. In the nature of things the 
colonies on this side of the ocean cannot remain forever connected 
with their mother countries. A revolution is inevitable in Mexico as 
in the United States. It inheres in the very nature of things. 

We are wont to boast of the wonderful success that we had in over- 
throwing the English authority and establishing a stable, orderly, and 
efficient government for ourselves, and we swell with pride as we com- 
pare our triumphant happiness with the troubles and the sorrows that 
Mexico has had ; but if we consider carefully the difficulties to be over- 
come in the two countries, think what they had to do compared with 

3 



4 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

what we have done, and place our real work by the side of theirs, we 
shall perhaps learn to appreciate that the people in Mexico are entitled 
to quite as much credit as we are. 

All that our fathers had to accomplish by their revolution was to de- 
throne the authority of the king, and substitute some other central power 
in his place. The whole minor machinery of government was ready 
to go on the same as before. The change was only a change of head. 
The towns, counties, and states were already organized and perform- 
ing, efficiently and well, the ordinary functions of government. Our 
Revolutionary War really accomplished a change of sovereignty more 
fanciful than real, and the subsequent adoption of the Constitution was 
a matter which followed quite naturally and with comparatively little 
difficulty. 

We had, it is true, to build a nation, but the foundations were already 
laid deep in the experience of centuries. We were furnished with 
plans, wisely drawn and carefully perfected by accomplished architects, 
and we had skilled and experienced artisans to do the work. In Mex- 
ico they had no foundations, no plans, no experience, and no artisans. 
The people had to commence at the beginning ; they had to learn even 
the rudiments of self-government and the very alphabet of statecraft. 

What we had to do was done by a people who for centuries had been 
educated to do their own thinking, solve their own problems, and man- 
age their own affairs, both in Church and State. In Mexico it had to 
be done by a. new race, which had never been taught to think or to act 
in public affairs for itself, or to meddle with social, political, or religious 
questions. 

We, it is true, had to make bricks, but we had plenty of straw and 
abundance of workmen, who knew how to mould and fashion the clay ; 
in Mexico they had to make bricks just the same, but without straw or 
brick-makers. 

It was 1800. 

The colonies in the North had carried on a successful war of in- 
dependence, freed themselves from the domination of Great Britain, 
formed a constitution and government of their own, and were on the 
high-road to prosperity. 

Across the ocean Francelhad risen in rebellion against the despot- 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 5 

ism of the Bourbons, had overthrown titles, caste, and authority, and 
had enthroned first the mob and then Napoleon. 

Down through Louisiana and Texas the immigrant was slowly 
working his way from the United States, carrying with him into Mexico 
the ideas of liberty which had triumphed here. Into Mexico also was 
coming from across the ocean the French ideas. The works of Vol- 
taire and Rousseau, prohibited by the State and burned by the Inqui- 
sition, were secretly read by the people. Revolution was in the air. It 
must come. It could not be long delayed. 

Across the ocean, even in old rock-ribbed, priest-ridden Spain, 
things were moving. Carlos IV. had mounted the throne in 1788. He 
was a good-natured idiot. He differed from his predecessors only in 
being good natured. He had a queen who was as bad as he was im- 
becile, and the queen had a lover, Manuel Godoy, a handsome, am- 
bitious, and corrupt libertine, whom she took from a subordinate 
position in the army and made Prime Minister of Spain, so that he might 
divide his time between idle dalliance with her and ruling half the world. 

France and Spain were neighbors. Napoleon was First Consul on 
one side of the Pyrenees and Manuel Godoy Prime Minister on the 
other. The lion and the lamb lay down together, and when they rose 
in the morning the lion and the lamb were one ; the lamb was inside, 
the lion. They played war a little at first, and then made a treaty of 
peace in which France got everything and Spain nothing. From this 
treaty Godoy gets his name. He is known in history as " The Prince 
of Peace." 

Things went on in this way until 1808. The rule of Godoy became 
so bad that even Spain could not stand it, and it can be imagined how 
bad it must have been. So they rose in rebellion, compelled Carlos to 
abdicate, and the " Prince of Peace " to leave his country for his country's 
good. 

Ferdinand VII. succeeded Carlos. He was a worthy son of his 
father. A new Spanish king always inherited all the vices of his 
ancestors, and for a change usually added a few peculiar to himself. 
When Carlos had abdicated in favor of Ferdinand, he did n't mean it, 
but Ferdinand did. Carlos wanted to come back to the throne, but 
Ferdinand objected. They submitted their differences to arbitration ; 



THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 



the arbitrator was Napoleon. This time the lion lay down with tAvo 
lambs, and the result was the same as before. Napoleon compromised 
the difficulty by making Carlos and Ferdinand both prisoners, and 
placing his brother Joseph upon the throne of Spain. Carlos and Fer- 
dinand had both agreed to abide by the decision of Napoleon, and they 
could not very consistently object to it, especially as they were in 
Napoleon's power and wore their heads upon their shoulders by his 
grace. Joseph, as they had given him the throne, naturally did n't 
offer any objections to the proceedings. There was only one party 
interested that was in a position to object. The people of Spain had 
not been consulted, and again they rose in rebellion, and civil war fol- 
lowed. They did n't want Joseph for king, and they could n't get 
either Carlos or Ferdinand, and there was nobody else lying around 
loose who could be conveniently put upon the throne. Therefore, from 
sheer desperation, because they did n't have anything else to do, they 
tried the experiment of governing themselves. 

When in England there has been a revolution and they have 
wished to dethrone a king (and they have never hesitated to do it when 
occasion required), they have always had a parliament at hand which 
represented the nation and local and municipal governments managed 
by the people. But in Spain they had never had a national parliament, 
and local governments were all substantially dependent upon the cen- 
tral authority. Under such conditions the only way to carry on a 
revolution is by a junta, and Spain tried government by junta. A 
junta is a body, either entirely self-constituted or deriving its authority 
from some other self-constituted body which assumes to speak for the 
people, like the nine tailors of Tooley Street. If the nation likes it, it 
obeys the Junta ; if it disapproves, it cuts off the heads of the members 
and tries again. The only way you can tell whether a nation is ripe 
for a revolution, or whether it will approve of any particular junta, is 
to try it. If the members retain their heads, it is a success ; otherwise 
more or less of a failure. In Spain, about this time, they experimented 
with several juntas. There was the Junta of Seville, the Junta of 
Oviedo, and several other outlying juntas, all claiming to a greater or 
less extent, the supreme authority. Then all the juntas came together 
and compromised, and for a while there was a central junta, and this 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 



was followed by an attempt at a national congress on the Island of 
Leon, to which deputies from the Spanish-American possessions were 
invited. 

It was 1810. The people in Mexico had been brought up to believe 
implicitly in the divine right of the king. He was the head of the State 
and the Church. His voice was the voice of God. If any one wanted 
to prosper during life, or to go to Heaven after death, he must 
acknowledge the authority of the king and obey the priest. There was 
never a people in all the world, since time began, in whom the senti- 
ment of loyalty was stronger than in the people of Mexico towards the 
Spanish sovereign. It had survived the rule of the basest of kings, the 
most corrupt of ministers, and the worst of viceroys. It had survived 
oppression, contumely, and contempt ; it seemed strong enough to 
survive anything. 

But now arose a dilemma. Who was the king ? Whose voice was 
really the voice of God ? What particular authority was entitled to- 
their obedience ? Here were manifold voices, all thundering in their 
ears at the same time, and each claiming to speak by divine right. 

(i) Carlos IV. thought that he, although a prisoner in the hands 
of Napoleon, was still a king, and that his abdication, having been 
brought about by force, should be considered of no eifect, and he asked 
to be obeyed. 

(2) Ferdinand VII., also Napoleon's prisoner, having been 
crowned on his father's abdication, thought that he was king, and that 
his voice was the voice of God. 

(3) Joseph Bonaparte, having seated himself perforce upon the 
throne as the successor of the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons, wearing at 
least a prophet's mantle, claimed their obedience. 

(4) The Junta of Seville, assuming to represent the Spanish 
Sovereign, whoever he might be, claimed that its was the voice of God, 
and should be obeyed. 

(5) The Junta of Oviedo claimed the same thing. 

(6) The Congress or Cortes on the Island of Leon set up the 
same claim. 

(7) About this time a ship landed at Vera Cruz, bearing a letter 
from the Spanish Infanta, the sister of Ferdinand VII., claiming the 



8 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

regency during Ferdinand's captivity for her infant son, and asked 
obedience to him and to her. 

(8) It was during this period also that an Indian descendant of 
Montezuma appeared in the streets of Mexico, and claimed that the 
divine right of the ancient Aztec sovereign had descended upon his 
shoulders and that he spoke the voice of God. His claim was the 
subject of some ridicule, but I have never been able to see why it 
was n't as well founded as that of any of the others. 

(9) Viceroy Iturrigaray held the actual reins of power in Mexico, 
and as there was a good deal of doubt as to whose viceroy he was, he 
was disposed to set up business on his own account and to demand 
obedience to Senor Iturrigaray, individually. 

There were no railroads in Mexico. There was no easy communica- 
tion between the different sections of the country. There was only 
one newspaper, and that was the official organ under the control of the 
government, and theTe were few post-offices or post-roads. Ideas 
could not spread very rapidly in such a community. But at last the 
situation of affairs became so complicated that it gradually began to 
dawn, even upon the minds of the people in Mexico, that perhaps they 
ought to have a little something themselves to say upon the subject ; 
possibly the people might after all learn to govern themselves. 

Our forefathers had risen in rebellion because England claimed the 
right to tax the colonists of America six pence a pound upon the tea 
they used. The total tax collected from all the English colonies, if 
they had paid it loyally, might have been perhaps a hundred thousand 
dollars a year. 

For three hundred years Mexico had been constantly transferring 
her treasure to Spain, and at the period to which we have now arrived 
her annual tribute, over and above all the expenses of her own govern- 
ment, was fourteen million dollars clean profit to the Spanish crown. 
But that was not all. In late years, during the war with France, Spain 
had been in the habit of sending to Mexico for a loan whenever she 
was particularly hard pressed for money. It was called a loan by way 
of courtesy. The little ceremony of re-payment, usually supposed to 
be a feature of a loan transaction, was entirely omitted. At one time 
Mexico, in this way, loaned Spain twenty millions, again fourteen, and 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 



Still again nine millions. At another time the Spanish king, owing a 
debt of some three millions of pounds to England, cavalierly gave the 
latter country an order on Mexico for the money, and Mexico loyally 
paid it, to the surprise of both Spain and England. 

In return for all this what was Spain doing for the most profitable 
colony that any nation ever had ? No one was allowed to occupy any 
high or important position in Mexico who had not been born in Spain. 
Mexico was ruled from Spain and by Spaniards. Her rulers had little 
knowledge of the country and no permanent interest in it. All they 
wanted was to make as much out of it as they could while they were 
there, and go home to spend it. So, too, all the profitable trade of 
Mexico was in the hands of Spaniards born in Spain. Monopolies were 
granted freely by the Spanish Government to Spanish merchants, which 
made it impossible for the native-born Mexican to compete with them, 
and the people had to foot the bills. The wealth and opportunities of 
Mexico were in the hands of the Spaniards. In the Church as well as 
in the State Spaniards held all the high positions. Social distinction 
was confined to Spaniards. It was only those actually born in Spain 
who could hope for anything in the colony. A child born in Mexico 
from Spanish parents was ostracized till the day of its death. The 
Creole, although of unmixed Spanish ancestry, could hope for nothing. 
The pride of the Spanish-born stranger rose above even parental love. 

And yet not two per cent, of all the people of Mexico were of 
Spanish birth. The ninety-eight per cent, had the proud distinction of 
being allowed to labor for the honor, the glory, and the wealth of the 
other two. Six millions of people were living and toiling and slaving 
for the benefit of one hundred thousand ! 

What a justification is there here for a revolution, compared with 
the little tax on tea which had lost to England the best colonies she 
ever had ! 

The revolution broke out in the little town of Dolores, in the Pro- 
vince of Guanajuato, far in the North. It was led by a priest, Miguel 
Hidalgo. There had been several abortive efforts before this time. 
During the vice-royalty of Iturrigaray a plan had been formed to declare 
the independence of Mexico from Spain, and to have the Viceroy him- 
self lead the enterprise. Iturrigaray, like Barkis, seemed willing. But 



lO THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

the Spanish residents suspected what was going on, made the Viceroy a 
prisoner, and sent him back to Spain. 

Later, at ValladoHd in the West, the patriots had laid another plan 
to free their country, but the leaders were again betrayed and the enter- 
prise was nipped in the bud. 

This movement which Hidalgo led had its origin at Queretaro. It 
had been decided to raise the cry of independence upon a feast day, 
when the people would be assembled there in large numbers ; but a 
traitor again appears, hastens the climax, and Hidalgo on hearing that 
he was betrayed, without waiting for the feast day or the assembly, 
raised at once, in his own little village of Dolores, the cry "Viva 
nuestra Senora de Guadalupe ; viva la independencia." " Long live 
the Virgin of Guadalupe [the patron saint of Mexico] ; long live 
independence." His followers, whom he could not long control changed 
it to " Viva nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, muera el mal Gobierne, 
mueran los Gachupines ! " " Long live our Lady of Guadalupe, perish 
the bad government, death to the Spaniards," The cry is known in 
history as " El Grito de Dolores." The news spread and the people 
everywhere flocked to Hidalgo's standard. He led a mob (I will not 
call it an army) against Queretaro, and sacked it ; then against Guana- 
juato, sacked that also and put the garrison to the sword in cold blood. 
Later he massacred all the prisoners who had been captured. For a 
few months he had an undisputed career of triumph. He led his horde 
toward the City of Mexico and Mexico trembled. But the Viceroy 
Venegas and General Calleja, who afterwards became viceroy, organ- 
ized a successful defence, and their well-trained troops were able to 
disperse this mob on the Bridge of Calderon, and finally the leaders, 
Hidalgo, Allende, Aldamas, and others were captured in the North and 
shot at Chihuahua. 

Jt is common in Mexico to call Hidalgo the Washington of their 
revolution. I would not for the world say aught against the integrity 
of his character or the patriotism of his motives. There is nothing to 
lead us to believe that in all this revolutionary movement he was not 
actuated by a pure love for his country, and a desire to benefit his race. 
He devoted his life to their service, and he met a brave and heroic 
death. But his effort was crude, ill planned, organized badly, and 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. II 

carried out worse. He vainly thought that with a mob of undisciplined 
men, with women and children following, he could meet trained 
soldiers upon the battle-field. He imagined that numbers only were 
necessary. 

The pillage of these towns, the robbery of their treasure, and the 
massacre of the garrisons and of the prisoners show not so much 
that he was deficient in humanity as that he lacked statesmanship. 
The one thing that he needed was the substantial support of the intel- 
ligent, conservative masses of the community. The course he took was 
the one of all others most calculated to drive these from his standard. 
The best elements of the people must always shrink from such a cause. 
It were better to endure even all that the Spaniard could inflict than 
the evils which seemed to follow in the train of Hidalgo. 

This seed of pillage and massacre sown by Hidalgo and his follow- 
ers bore bitter fruit for long years. Many of the best of the Creoles, 
whose sympathies and interests were naturally with their countrymen, 
were by these excesses driven to the royalists' side, and fought in the 
ranks with the soldiers of Spain. It was not till 182 1 that the butchery 
at Guanajuato was so far forgotten that the native-born Mexicans were 
substantially united in the cause of freedom and independence. Then, 
and then only, after the best blood of the country has been shed, and 
its best men had perished, could the cause succeed. Long and bitterly 
did Mexico suffer for Hidalgo's folly. 

He failed as such a man, pursuing such a policy, must inevitably 
have failed ; and while we give him credit for the purity of his motives 
and the nobility of his character ; while we recognize that the cry that 
was raised in Dolores in 18 10 was the commencement of the struggle 
which ended in the triumph of independence under Iturbide in 1821, 
and of good government under Porfirio Diaz in 1876 ; while we fully 
recognize and extol his purpose and his patriotism, I cannot regard 
Hidalgo as a leader worthy of his position, or entitled for a moment to 
be placed by the side of our Washington. 

Later historians, upon a more careful consideration of Mexican 
history, are inclined to give the honor of the leadership of the Mexican 
Revolution to a man, the purity of whose life and the patriotism of 
whose motives were unexcelled even by Hidalgo, and who had in ad- 



12 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

dition proved himself to be one of the most heroic of soldiers, the 
greatest of commanders, and the best of statesmen. 

Jose Maria Morelos was born in the year 1765, near the city of 
Valladolid, in the State of Michoacan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. 
His father was a carpenter ; his mother the daughter of a school 
teacher. Jose had only the barest rudiments of an education in his 
boyhood, and in his early youth his father died, leaving him to the care 
of his uncle, a freighter, and Jose drove mules until he was thirty-two. 
He always, however, yearned for an education and desired to enter the 
service of the church. At thirty-two he contrived to get admission to 
the college of St. Nicolas, of which Miguel Hidalgo was rector and 
teacher. As soon as he could pass the examination he took orders, and 
becoming like Hidalgo an ordained priest was given charge of some 
small rural parishes on the Western coast of Michoacan. When the cry 
of Dolores reached him, the blood was stirred in his veins, and he set 
out at once for Guanajuato. Meeting his old teacher, he offered his 
services at once and was given authority to raise an army for indepen- 
dence in the Southwest. He left upon this errand, and the two men 
never met again. It was only a few months before Hidalgo was 
executed at Chihuahua, a thousand miles to the North, and his com- 
patriot, five years later, met the same fate under the walls of San 
Cristobal, in the far South. 

Morelos started from his own parish with a force of twenty-five 
men, a few of them armed with guns, some with lances, and the rest 
with sticks ; but it was the germ of the army which shook the Spanish 
power in Mexico to its foundations and finally won the liberty of its 
country. 

Every race that ever has been has had tb stand the baptism of fire. 
Probably every race that ever is to be must go through the same ex- 
perience. No race of men can succeed or perpetrate itself without 
this test of its heroic virtue. 

The time has come for the new Mexican race to submit itself to the 
inevitable ordeal. For nearly three hundred years they have been 
growing and multiplying. Some ten generations have lived and died 
since first the Spanish cavalier took the Nahua maiden for his bride in 
this new land beyond the sea. The race which has risen has now the 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 1 3 

Stamp of three centuries ; but it had been three centuries of peace, 
quiet, and order. There had been in Mexico, during all this time since 
the Conquest, nothing which can be dignified with the name of war. 
The wild Indians had occasionally broken out in the mountains, and 
small troops of soldiers had been sent to subdue them. The pirate 
ships of the Spanish Main had now and then skirted the coasts of 
Mexico and disturbed some of the seaport towns. Once in a while 
there had been some civil commotion, a strike among the laborers, or a 
demand for bread from the hungry populace. But these were all but 
ordinary and transient troubles and of little consequence in the history 
of a nation or a race. 

Now the supreme moment has come. The new Mexican race must 
live or die according as it stands this test of tests. 

It certainly had a leader worthy of the occasion. It has been said 
that whenever a great commander is wanted he always appears at the 
right moment. I am inclined to think that this is more poetry than 
fact. We sometimes have to wait long and patiently for the right man 
to come. But the hour of supreme trial, when the fate of a nation or 
of a race hangs in the balance, is the hour that will discover and dis- 
close the hero if the hero is there. 

Morelos is now our hero. At Acapulco he learned of the capture 
and death of Hidalgo, and then he knew that the hope of his race, and 
it may be the hope of liberty for all mankind, rested with him. 

He commenced at once to assemble, organize, and discipline his 
famous army. You must remember the materials which he had at his 
command ; — raw rustics who had never seen danger and perhaps never 
fired a gun ; new men, untaught, undisciplined, and untried ; men of 
a new race, with no pride of ancestry to elevate their souls, and no 
record of heroic deeds to inspire them ; men totally unused to act in 
concert or to co-operate with one another, unaccustomed to manage 
their own affairs or to formulate their own opinions ; for centuries the 
willing slaves of the king and the easy victims of the Church. If you 
would compare their deeds with the soldiers of our revolution, compare 
first our advantages with theirs. Washington had in his soldiers the re- 
sult of the education, development, culture, and courage of untold gen- 
erations. Morelos had, at the best, only the rawest materials for heroes. 



14 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

At first they showed little even of that. At Aguacatillo, a detach- 
ment of the Independents met one day a Royalist force, like them levied 
from the rustics of the country. Their conduct on that day reminds 
us of the celebrated duel of Bob Acres. Both sides indulged for a few 
minutes in some wild and reckless shooting, and then the Independent 
troops turned and ran without looking to see what had become of 
their opponents. A drummer-boy, more curious if not more brave than 
the rest, climbed a tree to see what the Royalists were doing. / He found 
that they were running still faster in the other direction. He called 
back the insurgents. They turned, chased and captured the Royalists, 
and won a glorious victory without the loss of a man on either side. 

But Morelos, by persistent education and discipline, and by the in- 
domitable zeal and valor which he not only displayed himself on all 
occasions but succeeded in communicating to those around him, soon 
turned this wild, unconglomerated mass into an army of which neither 
Washington nor Wellington need have been ashamed. 

I have not time to follow the early career of our priest-captain in 
the West. He had succeeded in winning to the cause of independence 
the people of Southern and Western Mexico, and in driving the Royal- 
ists back almost to the very gates of the capital. No soldiers had ever 
behaved more valiantly, and no captain had ever commanded better. 
But I must pass over all this and come to Cuautla. 

Calleja was in the North with his triumphant army. It was the best- 
equipped and best-disciplined body of soldiers that had ever been on 
American soil. In it were now the finest troops of Spain ; among 
others, that famous regiment of Asturias, which had carried off the 
honors at Belen, where it had defeated the French with great slaughter 
and won for itself the proud name of " The Victors of the Victors of 
Austerlitz." 

Viceroy Venegas sat in his vice-regal palace, and as he heard of the 
progress of Morelos he trembled, not only for the power of Spain in 
Mexico, but for his own personal safety. Messenger after messenger 
was despatched for the great army of Calleja to come and save them 
from this little parish priest and his force of rude rustics, Calleja 
came. He was to crush Morelos as you would crush an egg-shell in 
your hand. But although against him was coming all the power of 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 1 5 

Spain, with the best general, the best army, and the best equipments of 
every kind that Spain and Mexico could furnish, Morelos with his little 
band was undaunted and unterrified, and at Cuautla in the South he 
•calmly awaited the approach of the Royalist hosts. 

The name of this place is of Indian origin. It is derived from the 
Kz'i^cyuoxdL^'''' quauh" vcitdXiVCi^tdu^Q^ and "//a!«," place. Cuautla there- 
fore means the place where the eagle builds her nest. It became the 
nesting-place of liberty, and in it the freedom of a race was hatched. 

We are on historic ground. The city of Cuautla lies some sixty 
miles directly south from the City of Mexico. A little to the Northeast 
are Popocatapetl and Iztaccihuatl, whose summits rise so high that 
even here in the tropics they are capped with perpetual white as with 
the mantle of heaven. Farther to the east the famous Orizaba raises 
its snow-capped summit. Still nearer are the pyramids of Cholula and 
Otumba, rivalling in grandeur and historic interest their sisters in the 
valley of the Nile. A few miles to the southwest are the renowned 
mines of Tazco, among the richest of the world, worked long before 
the days of Columbus by the Aztecs of old, and still yielding their 
abundance to the people of modern Mexico. Just a little farther to the 
south is the town of Iguala, afterwards famous for all time as the place 
where Vicente Guerrero and Iturbide met and issued the " Plan of 
Iguala, " which rang the death-knell of the Spanish power in Mexico. 
Still a little farther to the south is the mountain village of Chilpanzingo, 
where Morelos assembled the first Mexican Congress, and decreed in the 
same act the independence of his country and the freedom of the slave. 
Still farther to the west is the port of Acapulco, to which for three 
hundred years had been brought the rich fabrics of the Orient, to be 
from thence distributed through all New Spain. 

Wellington once asked of a Mexican he met in Europe, " Where was 
this Cuautla ? " and he was answered that it was a small open city, upon 
a level plain. Wellington replied : " This shows the sagacity of 
Morelos." The place was in fact selected with rare judgment and 
discrimination by our little priest-commander for his desperate stand. 
No mountain fortress could have answered his purpose half so well. 
He attempted no exterior fortifications whatsoever, but inside the town 
he showed that the parish cura was no mean military engineer. He 



l6 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

walled up the doors and lower windows of the houses, and cut inside 
communications through the walls from one house to another. He 
barricaded the streets in some places and dug deep trenches in others. 
He hoarded his ammunition and provisions, drilled his men night and 
day, and waited for Calleja. Calleja came and immediately stormed 
the place in four columns, one on each side, confident of immediate 
success. And why should he not be confident? It was the same army 
that triumphed at Calderon, Guanajuato, Valladolid, and Zitacuaro. It 
had never known defeat or check. It was now reinforced with these 
victorious Spanish troops, the best soldiers in the world, and Calleja 
himself was a commander greater perhaps than any other that America 
had seen since the time of Cortez. Calleja's columns approach ; in- 
fantry, artillery and cavalry are in motion. The Mexicans allow them 
to come within a hundred yards of their intrenchments. Morelos had 
told them to wait until they could aim at the eyes of their opponents. 
They did. Then they opened so tremendous and persistent a fire that 
the best troops of Spain and all the world fell back in wild disorder. 

There were, during these days, many deeds of individual heroism 
well worthy of record in history. Galeano, one of the lieutenants of 
Morelos, seeing a Spanish colonel trying to rally his flying regiment, 
sallied out against him alone, engaged him single-handed, and killed 
him on the spot, and as may be imagined, the regiment of the dead 
colonel only fled the faster. In another part of the field Don Jose 
Maria Fernandez, afterwards knoAvn as Guadalupe Victoria, threw 
himself in front of a desperate charge of a Royalist detachment and 
saved the life of his commander. Vicente Guerrero and Sandoval 
had fortified themselves on the outskirts of the town, on a little plaza, 
and with a small force hurled back the repeated charges of the best 
of the Spanish troops led by General Llano. Miguel Bravo and the 
fighting Cura of Tapia hovered around on the outside with troops of 
cavalry, cutting off the Royalists' supplies and ammunition, and giving 
them no moment's rest anywhere. Leonardo Bravo held, against over- 
whelming odds, the plaza of Santo Domingo, and the priest Matamoras, 
fresh from his prayers and his church, fought as fiercely as the oldest 
soldier. Morelos himself was everywhere. With his eagle eye upon all 
parts of the field, guiding and directing every movement of his troops. 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 1 7 

regardless of personal peril, he was ever at the weakest point and 
imparting his own valor, courage, and enthusiasm to each individual 
soldier in his army. He never said, " Go ! " but always, " Come ! " and 
there was not a man under him who would not have been proud to 
have followed him even to certain death. Everybody joined in the 
fight. There were not arms enough to go around ; but the Indians 
stood upon the house-tops and used their slings and hurled down 
stones ; the women carried ammunition to the soldiers ; and even the 
children picked up the spent cannon-balls in the streets, and brought 
them to the warriors that they might send them back on their errand of 
death. 

Time and again Calleja led his cohorts against this army of liberty, 
but in vain. The action lasted, this first day, from seven o'clock in the 
morning till three in the afternoon. A final attempt was made by 
Calleja to decoy the forces of Morelos from his intrenchments by pre- 
tending to abandon his artillery. But Morelos was not to be caught. 

Time and again, after this day, Calleja was urged and entreated by 
Viceroy Venegas to make another assault upon Cuautla, but he stead- 
fastly refused. Nothing could induce him to try it again. He had had 
enough of it. He sent to Mexico for long siege guns and attempted to 
batter down the town. Again cannon-balls and shell came thick and 
fast, but again it was in vain. There was nothing left for Calleja to do 
but to blockade the town and try to starve it out. Morelos knew that 
the destiny of Mexico and the hope of liberty depended upon his suc- 
cessful resistance. Hidalgo slain in the North, Valladolid captured, 
Zitacuara destroyed, the Junta dispersed, Rayon a fugitive, no other 
organized force worthy of the name fighting for the independence of 
Mexico, if his army should be destroyed, then there would be indeed no 
hope for his country. If he could only hold out until the rainy season 
commenced Calleja would have to raise the siege, for Cuautla is in the 
Tierra Calliente, fevers come with the rain, and the European troops 
would be lost. If the rainy season had come as usual, this is what 
would have happened. But this time, the Lord seemed to be fighting on 
the side of the Royalists, and the rains this year were two months late. 

Calleja fully appreciated the heroism and ability of Morelos. He 
calls him, in his despatches to Mexico, " a second Mahomet, fighting,"' 



1 8 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

he says, " with a firmness worthy of a better cause." He had yet to 
learn that there can be no better cause than that of human Hberty. 

Not all the troops of the Royalists, gathered from all Mexico and all 
Spain, could dislodge Morelos from Cuautla. The weapons of human 
foes could not prevail against him. But he was finally driven out by an 
enemy stronger and more irresistible than mortal power. It was hun- 
ger. Their food gave out. They stood it like heroes day after day, 
waiting for relief, but none came. Every effort was made to bring pro- 
visions in, but the place was closely invested, and on the open plain the 
Spanish troops were superior. Famine now prevailed inside the town 
to a horrible extent. Maize was almost the only sustenance of the 
troops, and there was little even of that. They were hungry enough to 
eat anything. A cat was sold for six dollars, a lizard for two dollars, 
and rats and other vermin for one. An ox which was seen feeding one 
day between the Spanish camp and the town nearly brought on a gen- 
eral action, for the troops near by, unable to resist the temptation, 
rushed out to seize the prey, and were attacked while bringing it away 
by so strong a party of the enemy that Morelos had to draw out nearly 
his whole army to save them. 

Disease too began to show itself in its most frightful shape, and 
nearly three hundred sick were lodged in the Hospital of San Diego 
alone, and yet such was the influence of this man over every one around 
him that they endured all their sufferings with undaunted heroism. No 
one spoke of surrender, no one complained, for did not their brave 
commander share every peril and suffer all they suffered ? Heroism is 
contagious and every heart was full of it. But heroism cannot supply 
the place of food. Morelos saw that he must evacuate Cuautla. To 
surrender would destroy the hopes of independence in Mexico, and 
moreover would be the death doom of every man in the place, for Calleja 
gave no quarter. Here, at this trying moment, the spirit of the patriot 
and the skill of the commander is shown at its best. One dark night 
the troops were marshalled silently ; the order to proceed was given ; 
Galeano took command of the advance guard, Morelos himself of the 
centre, and the Bravos, Leonardo and Nicolas, of the rear. Silently 
they marched out, passing right under the guns of the enemy, and so 
skilfully was it all planned, and so superb was the discipline, that they 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 1 9 

were not discovered till they had crossed the river, got beyond the in- 
trenchments of the enemy, and the open country was before them. 
Then, too late, the Spanish camp was aroused and an attack on all sides, 
was ordered. But Morelos was prepared for this. He gave the pre- 
concerted signal, and that army of five thousand men melted away as if 
by magic and disappeared into the darkness, over the plains and into 
the mountains, where no enemy could follow. When the Spanish forces 
came from each direction to where the army of Morelos ought to be all 
ready to be closed upon and crushed, they saw, through the darkness^ 
only the dim figure of their own battalions, and mistaking friends for ene- 
mies, fired upon one another. Morelos had arranged that when he gave 
the order for dispersion the troops should scatter and meet again as soon 
as possible at Izucar, some twenty miles away. Two days afterwards 
they were there, and it is said that of this whole army only seventeen 
were missing ; but among those seventeen was Leonardo Bravo. Ever 
at the post of danger, he was hindmost of all, and was captured while 
guarding the rear. More of him hereafter. 

There is nothing in all the heroic records in history which to my 
mind compares with the retreat, dispersion, and re-assembling of this 
army of Morelos. The cause of the revolution then appeared almost a 
forlorn hope. No one knew better than the patriot priest and the troops 
under him how much they had to contend with and how greatly the 
chances were against them ; and yet, so far as is known without a single 
desertion, these five thousand men scattered over the plains and the 
mountains and came together again at the call of their leader, filled 
with the same undaunted enthusiasm which had sustained him all the way 
through, and preferring rather to die for liberty than to live without it. 

And these men were of a race which had never before known war,, 
and they themselves had had no previous civil or military experience. 
They were simply, when Morelos took them, uneducated, untrained,, 
undisciplined rustics and clod-hoppers. But the magic power of a great 
cause, and the resistless enthusiasm of a noble leader had transformed 
them into heroes, the peers of the most heroic men of the most heroic 
race that ever lived. 

Thus they gathered together again at Izucar, resolved to be free or 
die. A race had been baptized and a nation was born. 



20 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

Calleja was glad enough to sneak back to Mexico. He had had 
enough of it. He might have pursued Morelos and come up very close 
to him ; but he felt like the man who was hunting the bear ; it was all 
right until the tracks became too fresh. If Venegas was going to send 
him after Morelos again, he preferred to let Morelos have a good 
start. 

Calleja nevertheless essayed to enter the capital in triumph. He had 
been sent to capture Cuautla, and he had captured it. He had been sent 
to disperse the army of Morelos, and he had dispersed it, — after a 
fashion. But the people in Mexico seemed to understand pretty cor- 
rectly the true situation of affairs. They saw that the great Spanish 
General had been outwitted by the humble parish priest from Caracuaro. 

A comedy was acted at a social entertainment in the city, a few 
nights after the return of Calleja, in which a soldier appeared returning 
from battle, and presenting his general with a turban, telling him in a 
very pompous manner, '' Here is the turban of the Moor whom I took 
prisoner?" "And the Moor himself?" said the general. "Oh, he 
unfortunately escaped." The application was plain, and the chagrin of 
Calleja was almost beyond endurance. 

Morelos waited some time at Izucar. The mental strain had been 
too much for him. He was sick. That tremendous nervous energy of 
his had to be recruited ; but the priest Matamoras, now second in com- 
mand, reorganized the troops, and put them under the best possible 
discipline, so that as soon as Morelos was well, they were ready to start 
upon that memorable campaign in the far South. I will not follow our 
hero in his victorious march through Oaxaca. No raw levies which the 
Royalists could muster there could stand against him for a moment. 
His army was proof everywhere against anything less than the old 
Spanish regiments, and even the Victors of the Victors of Austerlitz 
had learned to have a very wholesome respect for the soldier-priest. 

Morelos was no less a statesman than a soldier. He saw that there 
must be something besides an army if Mexico was to be a nation. He 
determined to organize a government, and on the 13th of October, 
1813, the first Mexican Congress met at Chilpanzingo, a little town not 
far from Acapulco. All the provinces of Mexico which were under the 
control of the patriots were represented by elected delegates, and for 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 21 



those which could not be reached delegates were selected by the others. 
The Congress declared the independence of Mexico, proclaimed the 
freedom of the slave, and organized a Constitution. Calleja, who had 
now become viceroy, determined to capture this body, and so, by one 
stroke, put an end to the rebellion. He led his large and disciplined 
army out against it. Morelos had only a handful of men for the 
defence, but he fought heroically to the end. He succeeded in saving 
the Congress, but not himself. Ihe last man of his army to leave the 
field of battle, he fell into the hands of the enemy. There was no 
doubt as to what his fate would be. No patriot captured by Calleja 
ever lived to fight again. Morelos was taken to the City of Mexico and 
tried ; not by court-martial as a soldier, but by the Inquisition as a 
priest. His offence was not treason, but heresy ; the heresy of believing 
that man was born to be free. He was of course convicted, handed 
over to the military authorities for execution, and on the 22d of Decem- 
ber, 1815, he was removed from the prison of the Inquisition to the 
Hospital of San Cristobal, behind which the sentence against him was 
to be carried out. As he stood there, in front of the platoon of soldiers 
who with loaded guns was ready to take aim at his heart, he made 
this last prayer : 

" Lord, if I have done well, Thou knowest it ; if ill, to Thy infinite 
mercy I commend my soul." 

Thus died as pious a priest, as brave a soldier, as skilful a com- 
mander, as pure a patriot, and as noble a hero as has ever lived. 

The Government vainly thought that with the death of Morelos 
would come the end of the rebellion ; but the humble Cura of Cara- 
cuaro had planted the seed of liberty so deep in the hearts of the 
Mexican people that nothing but extermination could ever destroy it. 

The armies of the patriots were dispersed ; their leaders were cap- 
tured and shot ; but still the flame was not extinguished. Time went 
on till 1820, and all that appeared to be left of the rebellion was the 
indomitable Vicente Guerrero, with two thousand brave and undaunted 
soldiers concealed in the mountains of the Sierra Madre in the South. 
Then Iturbide came forward, a new recruit from the Royalist to the 
Republican cause. He joins his forces with those of Guerrero. The 
Royalist army, which had done so much to destroy the revolution, now 



22 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

turned patriots, and Iturbide attempts to gain the credit and win the 
rewards of his country's freedom. But it could not be. The memory 
of Hidalgo and Morelos and of the other heroes who had fallen was too 
fresh in the minds of the people ever to be obscured. Mexico is inde- 
pendent. Iturbide for the moment is the hero ; but the nation soon 
recovers its reason, and to the old leaders who have survived are given 
the places of honor, distinction, and responsibility. 

I cannot complete this story of the siege of Cuautla without a brief 
account of the subsequent career of some of the men who were there 
under Morelos. 

I have spoken of Leonardo Bravo, who led the rear upon the retreat, 
and who was captured whilst saving the rest of the army. His son, 
Nicolas, who was with him, escaped. Morelos had then three hun- 
dred prisoners from the Spanish army in his quarters. He turned them 
over to Nicolas Bravo to dispose of as he would, to save his father's 
life or to avenge his death. The father Leonardo and the son Nicolas 
were two of the loveliest characters in history. Pure and true patriots, 
untrained in war, unused to command, of quiet and gentle natures, they 
had embraced the cause of Morelos for the reason that it was the cause 
of liberty. Once soldiers, they became the best of soldiers. No men 
were ever more valiant, few commanders ever more skilful. They 
loved one another as not many fathers and sons have ever loved, and the 
Viceroy knew it. 

Leonardo was taken to Mexico, and Venegas sends him word, 
" If you will but write a letter to Nicolas asking him to lay down his 
arms, your life shall be saved and you shall be free." Leonardo 
replies : " I love my son better than I love my life, but if he did that, I 
would kill him with my own hand ! " Nicolas offers to exchange the 
three hundred prisoners, full-blooded Spaniards, for his father. Calleja, 
in a brief letter, declines the offer, and in his postscript adds, " Don 
Leonardo is ordered to immediate execution." 

Nicolas Bravo was only a Mexican. 

On receiving this contemptuous and heartless message from Calleja, 
Nicolas releases the three hundred prisoners, wishing, as he said, to put 
it out of his own power to avenge on them the death of his parent, lest 
in some moment of grief the temptation should prove irresistible. An 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 23 

'Cye-witness of the scene reports the speech that Nicolas made when 
the prisoners were brought before him to be released, as follows : 

"Your lives," he says, "are forfeit. Your master, Spain's minion, 
has murdered my father, murdered him in cold blood for choosing 
Mexico and liberty before Spain and her tyrannies. Some of you are 
fathers and may imagine what my father felt in being thrust from the 
world without one farewell word from his son — ay ! and your sons may 
feel a portion of that anguish of soul which fills my breast, as thoughts 
arise of my father's wrongs and cruel death. 

*' And what a master is this you serve ! For one life, my poor father's, 
he might have saved you all, and would not. So deadly is his hate 
that he would sacrifice three hundred of his friends rather than forego 
this one sweet morsel of vengeance. Even I, who am no viceroy, have 
three hundred lives for my father's. But there is yet a nobler revenge 
than all. Go, you are free ! Go find your vile master, and henceforth 
serve him if you can ! " 

I have failed to find in history the story of an educated and cultured 
Saxon more worthy of love and honor than this untutored Mexican. 

Nicolas Bravo lived to see the cause of independence triumph, and 
to become President of the Mexican Republic. 

Among those I have mentioned at Cuautlawas Guadalupe Victoria, 
then known by his real name of Don Jose Maria Fernandez. He was 
a young law student, of the age of twenty-two, pursuing his studies in 
the City of Mexico, when the Revolution broke out. He did not join 
Hidalgo ; he could not see in him the true leader for so great a cause. 
It was not till Morelos appeared that he joined his fortunes with those 
of the Revolution ; but from that time on he was a hero among heroes. 
I have told how at Cuautla he saved the life of Morelos by rushing in 
front of him in the face of a desperate charge. Through all the siege 
he was foremost in deeds of valor, and on the retreat he took the post 
of danger. He followed the fortunes of the Revolution to the end. 
He was with Morelos in Oaxaca, with him at the siege of Acapulco, 
with the army when Morelos was captured, and after the death of his 
chief he fought as long as he could find a place to defend or a soldier 
to follow him. At last, in 1816, most of his compatriots had been cap- 
tured or slain, the insurgents were being suppressed upon all sides, and 



24 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 



soon nothing remained of the revolution except Guerrero's little band 
in the mountains in the South. The Government offered pardon to 
all who would come in and accept it. Many did so. It was offered to 
Guadalupe, and pressed upon him. He preferred death to submission. 
Then a price was set upon his head. Armies were sent to hunt him. 
Any village where he obtained food was immediately destroyed. It 
was declared to be certain death to know his whereabouts and not give 
him up. It was under such circumstances and to escape such a hunt 
that Victoria took to the mountains, and from this time until 1821, 
when the cause of independence revived under Iturbide, he lived 
alone and unattended in the solitudes of the Sierras. For thirty 
months he did not see a human being or taste bread. In the summer 
he lived upon fruits, and in the winter upon roots and whatever else 
he could find. He was glad even to gnaw the bones of dead beasts. 
The clothing which he had on him when he disappeared was all torn 
to rags, and nothing was left .but a single cotton wrapper which he had 
somewhere found. And yet he would not submit. The troops that 
were sent to hunt him became tired of the fruitless quest and reported 
him dead, and so he was believed to be, by friend and foe alike. The 
last person he parted with when he disappeared into the wilderness 
was a faithful Indian, who said to him as he went away, '' If things 
change and you can come back safely, where shall I find you ? " and 
Victoria pointed to a high mountain dimly outlined in the distance, 
" You will find me or my bones somewhere on that mountain." Five 
years after that the cause which had been so dear to Victoria's heart 
was triumphant, and this faithful Indian set out to find his friend. 
He searched all over the mountain, and was about to give up in despair 
when he saw a footprint in the soft earth. He knew it to be the foot- 
print of a man of European origin, that is, of a man who had worn 
shoes (the Indian always went barefoot or wore sandals.) This faith,- 
ful man inferred that Victoria had been that way and would return 
again. He waited several days till his stock of provisions was nearly 
exhausted, and then went back for a fresh supply, leaving, however, as 
a sign to Victoria if he should come that way, a few tortillas hung up 
by a string over the path. 

A short time afterwards Guadalupe returned and found the tortillas. 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 2$ 



He had not tasted food for four days. He was so famished that he de- 
voured them before he thought why they were there. Then he reasoned 
that it must be either the signal of a friend or the ambush of a foe. He 
would hide and wait. The Indian soon came back. Guadalupe pre- 
sented himself but was not recognized. His beard and his hair had 
been growing for four years. He had on him no clothing except the 
ragged remnants of that one cotton sheet. His nails had grown like 
claws ; his body was gaunt and emaciated, and he was almost in the 
last stages of starvation. He convinced the Indian of his identity and 
went back with him, and as soon as it was known that Victoria was 
alive and returned there was such a universal rejoicing as Mexico has 
never known before or since. He became the national hero and re- 
mained so till he died. He was the first President of the Republic, and 
while he lived he was, as Porfirio Diaz seems now to be, the one man 
in the nation whom all factions were willing entirely to trust. 

And yet he was only a Mexican. 

Among others there at Cuautla was Vicente Guerrero. I have 
already referred to him as the one leader who kept the flame of the 
Revolution alive in the Sierra Madres in the South when it was 
extinguished everywhere else. He was the connecting link between 
Hidalgo and Iturbide. He survived the Revolution and suceeeded 
Victoria as President of the Republic. 

There were many others there at Cuautla well worthy of special 
notice, but time does not allow me to mention them here. All the Gal 
eanos, bravest among the brave, were slain during the war. Miguel anc 
Victor Bravo, brothers of Nicolas and sons of Leonardo, were also 
slain, Matamoras, the brother priest of Morelos and his second in 
command, was captured and shot. But I must stop, for among the five 
thousand soldiers were five thousand heroes, every one of them worthy 
of a monument. 

It has been customary to ridicule and asperse the Mexican nation 
and the Mexican people because after their war of the Revolution they 
did not succeed for many years in establishing a stable, orderly, and 
efficient government such as ours. But we should remember again the 
difficulties which the Mexican statesmen had to confront and the com- 
paratively easy task which we here in the North undertook. Professor 



26 THE SIEGE OF CUAUTLA. 

Fiske tells, in his great book on the The Critical Period of American 
History, something of the difficulties we had in establishing our 
national government after the Revolution. It was only by a very close 
shave that even we escaped anarchy : and yet we had the advantage of 
well-established, well-regulated and efficient Town, County, and State 
governments. We belonged to a race which had won its substantial 
liberty long centuries before, a race which had been accustomed to 
govern itself, both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs, from the time of 
King John down, a race which had always had some form of a Town 
Meeting and a national parliament, a race which had inherited its free- 
dom even from its wild Germanic ancestors. On the other hand, in 
Mexico was a new, untried, and inexperienced race, the growth of only 
three centuries, a race which had always been down-trodden and de- 
spised, a race which had never been allowed to govern itself, to manage 
its own affairs or to do its own thinking ; a race which drew its blood 
from the bigoted Spaniard and the untutored Indian ; a race which re- 
ceived its first baptism in this War of Independence and won then, for 
the first time, its right to assert itself among the races of the earth. 
The war was ended and Mexico was independent of Spain, but it had 
lost its best blood during the struggle, and the people who survived had 
yet to learn the first principles of practical statesmanship. 

Cannot you give to such a race and such a people, under such cir- 
cumstances, a little more time than the proud Puritan and the cultured 
cavalier took in the colonies of the North ? In 1857, under the lead- 
ership of Benito Juarez, a full-blooded Indian, and of Porfirio Diaz, a 
typical Mexican, Mexico completed her revolutionary struggle by over- 
throwing the authority of the Church and adopting a liberal constitution. 
Then came the French intervention and the second struggle for in- 
dependence ; but in 1867 the cause of liberty had again triumphed,. 
Juarez was seated in the Presidential chair, the new Constitution was 
recognized, and religious freedom promulgated and acknowledged on 
every foot of Mexican soil. A few years later, Diaz, the compatriot of 
Juarez, succeeds him in the presidential chair, and, from that day to 
this, there has been no just cause for complaint as to the stability and 
efficiency of the government of our sister Republic in the South. She 
has progressed rapidly in material prosperity, in mental and moral de- 



THE BUNKER HILL OF MEXICO. 2/ 

velopment, and in all that makes a nation great ; and those who know 
her best are the most sure that she is now, finally and forever, redeemed. 

To my mind those who brought Mexico from the infancy of her lib- 
erty to the well-ordered development of to-day, who helped her through 
her struggles for independence, through her early civil wars, through 
her contest with our country when we should have been a friend instead 
of an enemy, through the struggle with the Church and the French in- 
vasion, are as much entitled to the name of statesmen as the men 
who won the independence of the United States and gave us our 
Constitution and form of government. 

I have called the siege of Cuautla the Bunker Hill of Mexico. Cuau- 
tla and Bunker Hill were alike in form defeats. The patriot army in 
both cases retreated and left the enemy in possession of the field, and 
yet in both cases the contest, though apparently a defeat, was a sub- 
stantial victory. In 1776 it was shown that American yeomen could 
stand up against British regulars, and if need be, die with their faces 
to the enemy. In 181 2 the Mexican rustics, with the little priest at 
their head, were able to show at Cuautla that not all the power of Spain 
or all the soldiers of Asturias could crush the spirit of liberty which 
had been aroused in the breast of the new Mexican race. 

Shall not then the descendants of the heroes of Bunker Hill and 
the sons of sires who fought at Cuautla be equally proud of each 
other and of the fact that they are all Americans ? 




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